NASA plans to spend $1.6 bn on space taxis

NASA plans to spend $1.6 bn on space taxis

National Aeronautics and Space Administration has plans to spend a whopping $1.6 billion over the next two years to bolster industry efforts to develop space taxis , a media report said.

The US space agency will be looking for complete systems -- launchers, spaceships, mission operations and ground support -- to ferry astronauts to the InternationalSpace Station by the middle of the decade, The Daily Telegraph online reported.

NASA plans to spend $1.6 bn on space taxis

China, the only other country that has flown people in orbit, is not a member of the space station programme.

"Right now, we have a single-string failure for a $100 billion national lab. Every year we do not have a commercial crew capability, the station is at risk," NASA commercial spaceflight development director, Phil McAlister, was quoted as saying.